| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. With only one day remaining until President-elect Joe Biden takes office, it's time to look at how he's doing on one of the biggest challenges of the presidency: filling the White House and the executive branch with first-rate people. Biden's picks so far have almost entirely avoided controversy, and for the most part his choices have been praised by the relevant policy experts. Only two selections have sparked much pushback. A lot of Republicans targeted Neera Tanden, the nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, mainly because she's been an outspoken partisan. That makes her easy to attack on the grounds that her appointment undermines Biden's message of lowering temperatures and seeking bipartisanship. It's probably more accurate to say that Biden is charging ahead on a mainstream liberal policy agenda while also looking to cut deals; Tanden fits in with the former, if not the latter. The other controversy has been over Secretary of Defense nominee Lloyd J. Austin III — not for the most part for reasons of politics or qualifications, but because he's a recently retired general and the U.S. has a history of preferring civilian leadership of the military. There have been complaints from Democrats, Republicans and many neutral experts, but it appears likely that he'll be confirmed, and that Congress will pass a waiver of a law requiring seven years to elapse after leaving military service before an ex-officer can lead the Pentagon. Austin retired in 2016. It's possible there will be more controversy once confirmation hearings start on Tuesday. We'll find out then whether Biden's vetting team has done as good a job as it seems. Overall, however, Biden appears to have a high-quality group. He's also fulfilled, at least so far, his pledge about demographic diversity. In particular, Biden is shattering all records for women in the White House and in the executive branch. The cabinet has more women than ever, but it goes deeper than that. To date, 29 of the 51 announced nominees that require Senate confirmation are women — and 40 of the 64 announced positions designated as senior White House staff have gone to women. This is a reflection of the Democratic Party as it is right now. Biden and is transition team deserve credit for putting that party preference into action, and doing it without alienating important party groups or (Tanden notwithstanding) inviting attacks from Republicans. Are there hints of trouble? Yes. Biden has so far designated 51 nominees for Senate-confirmed positions. That's almost twice as many as the 28 that Donald Trump had just before taking office in 2017. But experts recommend that about 100 of these nominees should be ready to go by around Jan. 20, and Biden is apparently going to fall way short of that. If Biden winds up just a few days behind, that's no big deal. However, the road gets steeper after that. The Washington Post and Partnership for Public Service are tracking the 700 most important positions that require Senate confirmation; we'll see whether Biden falls further behind or if he picks up the pace. Each vacancy in the executive branch is a missed opportunity to influence the bureaucracy and to make things run smoothly. 1. Andrea Benjamin, Ray Block Jr., Jared Clemons, Chryl Laird and Julian Warble at A House Divided on Confederate symbols and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. 2. Alex Garlick at Mischiefs of Faction on what we can learn from a post-presidency impeachment trial. 3. Ryan LaRochelle on the Great Society and Democrats now. 4. Dan Drezner on all those leaks about Trump over the years. 5. Kimberley S. Johnson at the Monkey Cage on political violence in the U.S. 6. Norm Ornstein on the need — still! — for better continuity of government planning. He's been absolutely correct about this, and it's far past time for Congress to act. 7. Cristina Beltran on "multiracial whiteness." 8. Meredith Conroy, Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Anna Wiederkehr on Black women and women from other historically underrepresented groups in Congress. 9. Jeffrey Jones on Trump's final Gallup approval evaluation, which cements his record as the least popular president of the polling era. 10. David Leonhardt on the Covid-19 vaccines. 11. And Daniel Dale, CNN's indefatigable fact-checker, on the 15 "most notable" lies from Trump's time in office. I hate to argue with the expert, but I'll note two that are not included: Trump's assertion that the U.S. military had no ammunition when he took office and his claim that he prevented a war with North Korea. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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